Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Lighter thread

I don't like this ear doctor, that's what I'm thinking when he enters the room and looks me over like I'm in the wrong place, doesn't even ask me how I am even though I've heard him ask the last three patients effusively. Maybe it's because they're women, and he doesn't like fags. He only asks if I'm eating, and looks down with a grimace; obviously I'm eating.

For the first time I notice his degree in the hallway, he went to Yeshiva University for medical school. I wonder if he would like me more or less if he thought I was Jewish, my name on the books here is just Sycamore. Anyway, I go to this ear doctor because he's only five blocks from my house. And, you can always get a late appointment, I mean the latest one they do because they book five people at once and you have to wait a half hour, but that's not so bad. Anyway, he takes the wax out of my ears and says I should come in sooner because the wax is soft and wet and if it stays like that I might get an infection. I tell him it's wet because I put in ear drops, last time he told me not to use them because it's easier to get the wax out if it's dry but he was wrong because this time was the easiest yet, a burst of pain but otherwise it comes out smoothly. Using the ear drops just once is the key.

Afterwards it's so gorgeous outside with gusts of wind in the 5 p.m. sunshine and I'm looking for somewhere to sit and appreciate the cold and warmth, walking back towards my apartment but there's nowhere in the sun until the bus stop a block away, I mean not the actual bus stop because that's in the shade but sitting on the sidewalk in front of the lovely advertisement. I forget to see what’s behind me, whether I'm presenting or obscuring. I don't understand why I'm so tired, I feel like I've been sleeping better with dreams that just go on and on and aren't the dreams supposed to be the restful part. Not the content of the dreams, but the act of dreaming, right?

Although maybe there's something to say about the content, last night I was fleeing certain death which is a common dream but then I ran downhill and through these vines and then there was a covered area where maybe they wouldn't find me, I could walk through the brush and it was like the vines were housing, I was walking deeper to see if my friend could get through from the other side. When I woke up, I realize I didn't have chronic pain in that dream, that's always a relief even if I'm fleeing the evil that wants me dead, those people they're everywhere in dreamland. I won't say just like when I'm awake, because in dreams it's scarier like childhood -- out in the world it's just dreary and depressing.

This is my favorite time of the day, when the sun lowers onto my face and the light illuminates all these tiny details. Usually I'm still in my apartment or rushing somewhere, but sitting here I can appreciate all the colors in my hands -- pinks and yellows and greens and purples; the shine of the polyester threads in my woven jacket; the way the seams of my bag are sewn with lighter thread. Still I'm way too tired so I decide to count how many stitches go across -- maybe it will be a meditative exercise, although I'm not sure if my vision will blur and it does but the crazy thing is that just when I start I think there will probably be about a hundred, no that would probably be too even, but when I'm done counting that's exactly the number. I mean the number I count -- I'm not sure how many there really are.